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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

And so it goes

Like Problem Child, I too take my blogging duties seriously, but sometimes...

My foot is doing well after the surgery nearly two weeks ago. I had the stitches removed on Monday and aside from it looking like an experiment straight out of Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory, the foot looks and functions pretty well. I won't gross you out with any foot photos. But here's the Buddha I found for my foyer. I rub his belly whenever I can.

But apparently I didn't get Buddha soon enough. Late Sunday night, when I was really in the writing zone and the words were just flowing onto the page, I heard a drip, drip, drip, drip and went into my living room to see water dripping from the smoke detector mounted on the ceiling.

I put a plastic trash can under the drip and immediately called the emergency maintenance number and waited for their return call. When they didn't return my call I called again and then had the maintenance guy show up with some garbage about the wrong apartment number. Whatever. Let's deal with this water. He went upstairs and discovered a pipe had burst in the bathroom and the unit above me was about two to three inches deep in water, which by now was coming through the ceiling in a steady stream. Then it started coming through the ceiling fan. I grabbed more trash cans and buckets and pots and pans and tried to catch as much water as I could, but I had an area of carpet that was pretty well soaked.

All I could think about though was, "If this messes up my new sofa I'm gonna kill somebody." I know that's selfish. Children are starving all around the world, people die from cancer and other diseases, families are losing their homes to foreclosure, workers have lost their jobs and Marilyn is whining about her sofa.

Meanwhile, the carpet people have shown up and begun to vacuum extract the water from the upstairs unit (which I have learned is a corporate rental and that's why I only see the tenant every couple weeks). Slowly the dripping stops, but by now I'm seeing water stains in the ceiling and on some of the walls. The sofa is safe though.

After he's sucked about 100 gallons of water from upstairs (and that's not an exaggeration; the carpet guy said his truck holds 100 gallons and it was almost full) carpet guy comes to my place, sucks up the water in my carpet and then brings in a big air blower aimed at the ceiling.

By the time he left, it was nearly 2:30 AM, I was absolutely exhausted from dumping cans of water and soaking up the carpet with a Sham-Wow (which actually worked pretty well) and my foot hurt like bloody heck because I'd been on it too much dealing with the water mess. So I took a pain pill and went to sleep.

At 10:00 yesterday, two other carpet guys showed up, and using some little gauge thingy, told me I have a lot more wet carpet than I think. I have to move everything off the floor of my bedroom closet and they move all but the big furniture out of my living and dining room areas. I told them to put stuff in my guest room/office but to leave me enough room to get to my computer since I need it to work. Then they pull up the corner of the carpet in the closet and position a blower so it blows under the carpet. Likewise in the living room. And I have a dehumidifier sitting in the guest bathroom, sucking humidity from the air and generating an enormous amount of heat.

I'll have this machinery for two to three days they tell me. Oh joy. I can't hear the TV over the roar of the blower (but on the plus side it's like having a big white noise machine for sleeping). My teensy kitchen is filled with knick-knacks, a floor lamp and my dining room chairs. I can't get to my stove to cook. I'm arguing with the apartment management about their responsibility for my inconvenience (and I'm gonna win that battle, trust me).

So I'm going to continue in PC's vein.

I declare today to be Whining Wednesday.

What's gone wrong in your life? Who's ticked you off? What idiot nearly ran you off the road talking on the cell phone? Which of your creditors made a mistake on your bill this month?

Tell us! Whine all you want because what good is life if you can't whine once in a while? Getting junk off your chest lowers your blood pressure and reduces stress. Consider today a free visit to a shrink.

* Whine graphic from Tracey Buchanan Studios website. Go look at her website because there's some really cute stuff there. I may have to do a little early Christmas shopping.

18 comments:

Had the same problem with my son's condo - the upstairs neighbor flooded his condo and guess who paid for it. Only we lost our hardwood floor. The guy upstairs informed me he was a "doctor" (whup) and that he didn't have time to deal with me. Fighting words. After I sent him a legal notice that I was filing suit for damages, he reluctantly (six months later) gave me a check. I still had to deal with the mess though... Seems like when it rains it pours (just a joke).

What I really, really get tired of is having to force people to do what is right and what is their responsibility. Just once I would like to have someone say "Let me take care of that -it's not your fault." Until then, I shall continue the arduous task of tilting at windmills...

My only whine today is that I'm tired. For some reason I woke up feeling exhausted (did not want to meet the morning at 6:30) and wishing I'd started stocking the house with coffee. Unfortunately, I kept telling myself it was ridiculous to get the coffee maker out for one cup. I was SO wrong.

Must make trip for diet coke soon. It was so bad, I poured apple juice in my son's cereal instead of milk--and I have a client I have to handle at 8:30. I should be bloody brilliant by then. ;)

I can't think of anything though I do seemed to get annoyed more at the grocery store than anywhere else. Maybe that's my hot spot. Maybe if I went to more interesting places , say like a head shop or a black magic shop that's where I would get annoyed.

I don't have any complaints at present, but I DO know how you feel. I lived in an apartment that flooded twice (every time it rained hard ... come on, people, this is Alabama). I'd be up all night soaking towels and ringing them out on my patio. They'd pull up the carpet (I have to say, no one should see that in an apartment complex), do the blowers thing, and spray some anti-mold stuff. Yuck. Of course my son and I had to move all of our furniture for several days.

I can also say when I moved into my new house back in 2003, the A/C overflowed in our attic, went through our kitchen ceiling, and to this day it keeps cracking. I'm talking a crack two feet long.

Nice.

So my official complaint today will be that dang crack in the ceiling I'm doomed to have until I move to another house.

I was sick earlier this week. I'm feeling better but now I'm exhausted. I feel like just putting my head on my desk and taking a nap (yes, at 9:20 AM) but I can't. I have too much stuff to do. Which only makes me feel more tired. Sigh.

Hugs, Marilyn. I've been through the soaked carpet and huge blowers too, and it's annoying and inconvenient. :(

And I LOVE what Cheryl said: What I really, really get tired of is having to force people to do what is right and what is their responsibility. Just once I would like to have someone say "Let me take care of that -it's not your fault."

EXACTLY. People have this mentality that it's their RIGHT, by golly, to have what they want and do what they want -- and when something goes wrong, it's not THEIR fault. Sunzabitches.

Anyway. My whine today is that I have a book due very, very soon, and it's making no sense at the moment and it needs to because I don't have time for this. :/

Angel, you need one of those Keurigcoffee makers. My mom has one and it has really cut down on the waste. She was always throwing out a nearly full pot of coffee. She and my dad love the coffee you can get for it.

M, you should be compensated in some form for your inconvenience. For petes sake you are recuperating from surgery. maybe you should ask the local news to do a story on your suffering. Bad press always makes the bad guys turn around and make good.

I am so sorry to hear about the devastation and invasion of your home. I feel your pain.

Our devastation is by choice since we have dived in over our heads with major additions to our home (master glam bath/closets and Garage Mahal). We have been sleeping (or trying to, anyway) on our mattress/box springs in the middle of our living room. Our dining room is full of bedroom/ closet stuff while ours is being worked on. All three of us are surviving on one bathroom. What fun. There is a steady parade of workers in and out of and around our house. And to top it off, our yard looks like we've been testing missiles.

Hopefully, no one will die as we sail toward the end of Week 4. Some of those workers just don't appear to be that diligent. But it will be fabulous when it's finished, right?

Man, I understand where you're coming from, PM. Hang in there and more importantly prop your foot up. ;)

The night before my oldest's wedding, there was a break in a pipe at the church. The entire sanctuary was flooded. Kudos to all the people who fought against this through the night and all morning to get the church ready for our wedding. We almost had to cancel. Though the carpet was rumpled in places, my dil walked down the aisle looking beautiful and happy and the wedding went as planned. :D (Every wedding has to have a story though, right?)

Thank goodness the apartment complex will be responsible for making sure everything is set to rights.

One time, when I lived in an apartment, the upstairs apartment's radiator sprung a leak. Of course it dripped into my living room. I guess because of language barriers, the landlord didn't quite understand the problem until I called. Luckily it was fairly quickly fixed, however not before I had to leave town that day. I got to worry about it until I got back a few weeks later.

I'm glad to report the blowers are gone but I still have the ginormous dehumidifier, and now it's in the middle of my living room. At least it's pretty quiet.

Carpet's been put back into place (and steam cleaned too) and the sofa and bed were put back in proper position. The rest has to wait til tomrrow so the carpet can dry from the steam cleaning.

I can handle small stuff, and I wanted to re-arrange my closet anyway. This is a good excuse. The bigger items, though? I'm calling the office and telling them to send a maintenance guy to move them. I also need to have them note on my lease I now have a permanent stain from a piece of furniture that bled onto the carpet. I wanted it documented so I don't get dinged for it.

I feel your pain--yuck! My whine: weird widow in TX who is not a blood relation and the blood relations in TX who are weird and us just caught in the crosshairs and trying to survive unscathed after only trying to do the right thing for my FIL--LONG LONG STORY. Ugh.... let's just say, copious amounts of wine have been consumed about this situation.

Don't even get me started about the lawyers we have dealt with........ and no offense to the nice lawyers I know :=)

In college the guy in the dorm upstairs left a gallon on milk sitting out (who knows for how long) but it leaked enough to soak through the floor and start dripping into my ceiling and onto my desk. It wasn't much, we didn't gave carpet, but when the milk soured my room smelled terrible. They painted over the stain a couple times and eventually it faded but it was nasty. Stupid college boys.